Leading Terrorist Killed

January 23, 1979

JERUSALEM (Jan. 22)

Five Palestinian terrorists, including the EI Fatah leader Israel claims was responsible for the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre, were killed by a bomb explosion in Beirut today, according to reports from the Lebanese capital.

The reports said that Ali Hassan Salameh, also known as Abu Hassan, and four of his aides died when a remote controlled bomb detonated near their car while they were driving through the Moslem section of Beirut Salameh headed the personal bodyguard of PLO chief Yaser Arafat who is presently attending a Palestine National Council meeting in Damascus.

Israeli security sources singled him out as the mastermind behind the terrorist attack on the Israeli compound at the Olympic Village in Munich in September, 1972, where 11 Israeli athletes were slain. According to Beirut radio, EI Fatah did not say who was responsible for the bomb attack on Salameh but vowed revenge.